Monday, July 9, 2012

July 9, 2012 - Tidbits

On Friday Kristoffer and I were excited to celebrate 5 years of marriage. Here are the stats from the last 5 years:

we lived in 3 countries

we lived in 2 apartments and 2 houses

we own 4 cars (2 still in Nairobi - argh! - and 2 in Dar)

we now have 2 kids

we have flown more miles than I can count and have numerous passports stamps

we had a few fights, but waaaaaay more laughs

It's been a great 5 years and when we went out to dinner on Friday night we spent time really reflecting on and counting all of our blessings! Where will the next 5 years take us?

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A little bit of a security incident here: on Wednesday night our security guard dogs were poisoned. Two of them, a German Shepherd and a Doberman, died and one other Doberman survived. The more "pet" like dog on the compound did not eat the poison. The tactic is that thieves will throw poisoned meat over the wall of the compound (at what entry point, we don't know) to kill the dogs so that they can then get into the compound to commit a robbery. Nobody has broken in since the incident, but we don't know if that is because there are still two dogs or what. No known suspects or motives, aside from a random robbery attempt. The landlord found 3 other poisoned dogs at the vet from nearby. We're being a little more cautious now!

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We have a serious ant problem. Can't get rid of them. They are everywhere. At different times there are different sizes. Right now it is the teeniest, tiniest ants. All. Over. The place. So...I made homemade macaroni cheese the other day and had the casserole dish on the counter covered by foil. 30 minutes later I went to put it in the oven and one little corner of the food was covered in ants. So I scooped out that section of the casserole and put the rest in the oven. Rose started laughing. She said that where she comes from there are so many bugs in the water and in their food sometimes. She said if her mother saw that I threw away the food just because some ants were on it, she would laugh really, really hard. Just cook them and eat them! (YIKES!)

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We invited our landlords over yesterday - Mr. and Mrs. S. He is usually not around, staying in their native home a few hours away and tending their farm there. But he he is here in Dar now and we have done a lot to the house since we last saw him. So we had them over for tea and cake, and gave them a proper tour of the house. They were very pleased with everything we have done, how we have decorated, etc. We think they like us and we wanted to show them how happy we are living here, as well as how grateful we are that they have done everything we've asked of them (they built us a garage, staff quarters for Rose, got us a generator, built us an island in the kitchen, etc).